Entries in Joseph Gordon-Levitt
(24)

Jason from MNPP here using the ocassion of another's week's "Beauty vs Beast" to give good goblin love to one of our favorite 80s kid's movies: Jim Henson's Labyrinth is turning 30 today! The film was released on June 27th 1986, and to folks my age it became pretty much an instant classic. Labyrinth tells a tale as old as time - girl babysits, girl wishes baby away to David Bowie, David Bowie's innappropriate bulge mesmerizes an eight-year-old me, so on and so forth. What's not to love? I saw Jennifer Connolly on the subway once and it took all the restraint inside of me not to yell, "Your mother is a fraggin' aardvark!" at her.

PREVIOUSLY It was the start of the endless summer season last week so what better way to 'celebrate" than by looking back at the romantic-comedy that dragged it out to (500) Days - in the end it was the dancing charms of Joseph Gordon-Levitt that won your heart (at least for a few months anyway) with 57% of the vote. Said Noecitos:

"Team Tom! If only because of the inspired fanfic writers who paired him with Tom Hardy's character in Warrior."

Jason from MNPP here at "Beauty vs Beast" o'clock, wishing everybody the happiest First Day of Summer possible... and if you're like me and you hate this season as much as I do then that includes a locked door, some drawn shades, and an air conditioner on full blast. Heat! Sweat! Sunshine! Blah! I want none of it. I have the opposite of what Mama Cass had in "California Dreamin'" - I dream of such a winter's day. (And that's why I live in NYC.) But you know what? There are only 93 days of Summer... it could be worse!

PREVIOUSLY Knowing full well that Finding Dory was about to flood the marketplace we went Pixar-themed last week too, asking y'all to pick sides in the Great Toy Battle of 1995 - Are you a Buzz or are you a Woody? Turns out that 75% of you are Woodies, who knew? Said BVR:

"I love that Pixar resisted the urge to endear Woody to us, instead playing up the mad, jealous, even scheming nature that springs from within as he sees his #1 status being gradually taken away. You would think this would make me vote for Buzz, who seems totally innocent, delusional and oblivious to Woody's schemes; but as funny as that quality is, I just love Woody for being so flawed and human."

Manuel here. We did it last year when we got our first look at the poster for that other Joseph Gordon-Levitt biopic film (remember The Walk? No?) so let’s do the same with this new one sheet for the Oliver Stone flick about Edward Snowden after the jump...

We're celebrating Valentine's Day this week with odes to some of our favorite romantic movie moments. First, here's Murtada on the musical number in (500) Days of Summer.

The first time with the person you love. It's all what you’ve dreamed it would be. The next morning you wake up giddy, but …what to do. Why of course dance to Hall and Oates' "You Make My Dreams Come True" on your way to work, with the whole world as your own chorus, marching band and fan mob rolled into one. That’s what happens to Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt) after Summer (Zooey Deschanel) rocks his world.

What a show-off! Maybe even a braggart. Gordon Levitt gets congratulated by everyone he passes and literally scores a goal. Yet somehow it’s not off putting but utterly charming. Part of that is due to the character and the performance. Most of the appeal though is because we’ve all wanted to share our exuberance with the whole world after a particularly lovey dovey moment. Or you know right after the first time with a new love.

The scene becomes a delightful expression of the exhilaration of love. Blending dancing, animation and cultural refrences (Hello Han Solo!), it also comes at exactly the right time in the story, elevating the stakes and making - spoiler alert - the eventual heartbreak even more painful.

Happy Valentine’s

What are some of your favorite romantic musical numbers? And do you forgive (500) Days of Summer for bringing Chloe Grace Moretz into our lives?

Nathaniel reporting from NYFF 53 though this movie is now in IMAX theaters and next week wide for all y'all. This piece was original published in a shorter version in my column @ Towleroad

The Walk begins in mid air with a jaunty circus-like score from composer Alan Silvestri accompanying the clouds. Our birds-eye view is quickly revealed as just above Manhattan, perched on no less a tourist icon than the Statue of Liberty. That we’re looking at something purely presentational is abundantly clear as crinkly-eyed Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes his first appearance, smiling and speaking directly to the camera. And he speaks with a cartoon French accent to boot. (To be fair to JGL, many real French people sound like cartoon people when they speak English. This is meant as a compliment because who doesn’t love cartoons and/or French accents?). What’s more, at least to these only super-marginally trained ears (I watch a lot of French movies and I took French in high school –that’s the extent of it!) JGL’s actual French sounds impeccable in his subtitled scenes with French co-stars.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's adorableness can be so distracting? Is that why filmmakers keep trying to make him look not so much like Joseph Gordon-Levitt? We already know he can sing / dance / act and in this film he juggles and wirewalks and speaks fluent French. Is there anything he can’t do?

• The next James Bond will be... Damian Lewis? Our first ginger 007 you guys! Rumor only but I could see that happening. [Mirror]• It's weird that there's not a definitive feature about the airplane-building Wright Brothers. Steven Spielberg wants to make one as it turns out. Seems like a good fit, no? [/Film]• Life on the red planet? There's water at least. Did Fox pay NASA to announce this the week before the opening of The Martian ;) ? [The Guardian]

• Rising star Jonny Beauchamp says he owes everything to Roland Emmerich. Oh noooo. Tough debt. Also there's a photoshoot [Interview magazine]• "I was being talked to like I was a silly pop singer." Grace Jones is still quotable/fabulous/singular. Just released a memoir [Time Out]• "I've got tea. I've got cookies. No cake!" I cannot tell you how often my best friends and I quote The Log Lady from Twin Peaks. RIP Catherine Coulson [Wired] • "Marlene Dietrich believed her pussy was magic" is the first sentence of this article so you know you want to read it. Why can't we get a biopic about THESE anecdotes? [Pajiba]• Is this really Frank Grillo (from Captain America: Winter Soldier) younger & NSFW? [OMG BLOG] • Everyone in the world has forgotten that Disney was going to make an Enchanted sequel. Except Disney apparently. It's going to be called Disenchanted. I shudder to think of the web exploding with "who should replace Amy Adams?" articles [Coming Soon] • "we were certainly looking for shots that told the story without a lot of cutting." - Roger Deakins on point of view and action sequences in Sicario [The Film Stage]• First image of Woody Harrelson as LBJ in Rob Reiner's forthcoming biopic [Empire]

Image of the DayThor and The Vision making out from theAvengers: Age of Ultron gag/blooper reel. Love the elegant placement of Thor's hammer. The best part of the image is surely that man about to shoot in the corner.

Video of the Day #1The Revenant gets a new nearly 3 minute trailer. I won't be watching it because I love the teaser so much (previously discussed, the one with all the heavy breathing) and I don't want any more information in my eyeballs before seeing it than we've already gotten. The reaction online seems breathless/"MASTERPIECEY"! but one should never bank on trailers to tell you what the finished quality of a movie will be, only to tell you whether it looks like you must see the movie. The last trailer that fooled me with "oh, this will be a masterpiece, hands down!" was Little Children (2006) and that's where I learned my lesson once and for all that the art of cutting trailers into 2-ish minute expressive gems was an entirely different art form (a beautiful art form if you don't give too much away) then making a 2 hour movie.

Video of the Day #2"Bitch Better Have My Money" Barbershop Quartet Quintet style with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Glenn here. Look, we all know Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a child actor, and a pretty good one, too (that scene where he got skate in the face in Halloween: H20 is very memorable). But let's not kid around here. It wasn't until the release of Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin in 2005 that most really started to take him seriously. One year later he starred in Brick and he's only continued to rise up the ranks as a popular and critically respected actor. Looking back, I can't recall if his presence was as exciting to me in this film as Michelle Trachtenburg from Buffy, but looking back now he's certainly one of the reasons the film holds up.

It's actually rather appropriate that the 10th anniversary of Mysterious Skin should occur now at around the same time as New York Magazine's article entitled “Why You Should Go to the Movies (and Do Other Stuff) Alone” has been getting shared around on social media. You see, Araki's film was the first film I ever went to see at the cinema by myself. I travelled to Melbourne all on my lonesome, without friends or family who I usually convinced to join me for a day at the arthouse, and caught a screening of the movie that had amassed so much controversy in the local media. There were threats of it being banned after a 'family organization' (code for fundamentalist "won't somebody think of the children" noddies) demanded a review of its already very restrictive R18+ rating which is the Australian equivalent of an NC-17. Given the history of sexually graphic films being banned after similar action - titles like Romance and Baise-Moi - I knew I had to see this film. And fast!

Manuel, who is deathly afraid of heights, here to discuss the newest poster for Robert Zemeckis's upcoming film The Walk.

1. This looks like a dolly zoom waiting to happen.2. I miss Death Becomes Her/Back to the Future Zemeckis. Heck, I even miss Cast Away/What Lies Beneath Zemeckis. Might this be the film that restores my faith in his kinetic filmmaking after over a decade of losing him to performance capture (and that Denzel film which everyone seemed to warm up to but which left me cold)?3. Oh, this is giving me vertigo.4. The poster doesn’t really draw attention to it, but the blue-eyed, strawberry-blond Joseph Gordon-Levitt from the trailer still haunts me.5. God, my palms are sweaty. And this is just a poster! Bring back that gorgeous minimalist teaser!6. Can this live up to Man on Wire, James Marsh’s Oscar-winning documentary about this very “walk” which I saw through my sweaty palms but remember liking a lot?7. “Every dream begins with a single step” suggests the marketing will be pushing this as an uplifting “true story." One hopes Zemeckis offers us a tad more. Related: will they really be billing it as The Walk: A True Story, and if so can we just call it TWATS for short?8. The more I stare at this the dizzier I get and now my toes are tingling.9.Snowden or Petit; which Joseph Gordon-Levitt “based on a real person” performance are you most looking forward to?10. Will I survive watching this on IMAX 3D? he typed while wiping his sweat-stained keyboard.

I can’t look at this anymore without finding a nearby paper bag but I’m curious what those less heights-averse folks have to say about this poster and upcoming film. Will you take the first step with Zemeckis and JGL when this opens in October?